Forgotten Voices of the Somme (16 page)

Private Arthur Pearson

15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment

At zero hour, everybody climbed out of the trenches. Two platoons formed the first wave. Every man climbed out of the trench at the officers' whistles, and not a man hesitated. I was lucky; I was at a part of the trench where the parapet had been battered down, and when I ran out of the trench, I was under the hail of bullets that were whizzing over my head. Most of our fellows were killed, kneeling on the parapet. There was nobody coming forward with me – only one man – and the reserves had been shelled in our lines and blown to smithereens.

Private Ralph Miller

1/8th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment

We got to the point that we thought the quicker the bloody whistles go, the sooner we go over the top, the better. We always said to one another, 'Well, it's a two-to-one chance. We either get bowled over, or we get wounded and go home. It's one of the two.' We got so browned off with the waiting. To the extent that you didn't care what happened. In fact, I was pleased to go over – I wanted a
Blighty wound
. You can just imagine, there were hundreds of fellows, shouting and swearing, going over with fixed bayonets. We had no chance of getting across no-man's-land, there was so much barbed wire. Of my football club from back home, we all went over together, and ten out of twelve of us were killed.

Private Stanley Bewshire

11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment

When we got into the German front-line trench, there was nobody there, they had gone. There were only dead men lying about. I moved forward. I hadn't gone very far before I got a whack on the head. I didn't know what had hit me. I went down. How long I lay there I didn't know, but it must have been in the afternoon when I had came round. Whoever did it had left me, taken my gun and gone. When I came round, all was quiet.

I got up, moved back into no-man's-land, and I'd got about fifty yards across, under fire, when I found a machine gun. I picked up this gun and jumped down into a shell-hole. I gave the gun a go, to see if it was in order, and I saw that right in front of me were the German communication trenches. I lay in the shell-hole for about half an hour and then some Germans came out – about ten or fifteen of them. I was right in front of them. After two or three bursts, they turned back – what was left of them. I thought now was a good chance for me to move.

So I picked up the gun and went about fifty yards. On my way, bullets were flying all over me. I had a marvellous escape. One bullet went through my haversack, breaking all my day's ration. It went through my water bottle and all my water started spilling out. Then, shrapnel hit my sack and started hitting my equipment, and it broke off.

Private Herbert Hall

12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment

I heard the Germans calling from their trenches, 'Come on Tommy! We are waiting for you!' It was weird. In perfect English. I killed a few, of course, and I took a prisoner. He walked into us in no-man's-land. I brought him back and walked him to the back lines, passing the whole lot of the
British Army
lying in stretchers, dead bodies, and all the rest of it. I don't know what happened to him afterwards. I think somebody might have shot him.

And afterwards, a general came to see us. I know his name and I won't mention it. He said, 'Did any of you people see anything meritorious?' There wasn't a single sound. There was only about seventy of us, and that included the first line reinforcements. Not a sound. We thought it was a very unnecessary question. And, of course, to insult us, they awarded the medals to the colonel's runner and the senior stretcher-bearer.

Sergeant A. S. Durrant

18th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry

I reached the German trenches, but I was wounded, and I saw the entrance to a dugout. So I dragged myself along to the steps of the dugout, and I thought, 'Let's see if I can get in there...' I dragged myself to the steps of the dugout, and I managed – somehow – to get myself into a half-sitting, half-lying position, on the steps leading down to the dugout. Suddenly, the mouth of the dugout fell in. A high-explosive shell must have burst very nearby, and I was thrown into a doubled-up position. I didn't seem to be hurt any further, but the entrance down to the dugout was blocked so I dragged myself out and rested in the open. This went on until the evening, and I gradually dragged myself in the right direction, to the British lines, and eventually I crawled to safety. And, on arriving at what I thought was safety, I saw an old college friend of mine, nicknamed 'Whiskers'. I shouted, 'Whiskers!' He came along. 'Hello! What are you doing here?' He was in the Royal Army Military Corps, and he took charge of me, put me on to a stretcher and conveyed me to a medical shelter.

Private Donald Cameron

12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment

At midday, the sun was hot and I fell asleep. You've got to remember that

we'd been up all night, and we'd been on working parties for a fortnight before that, digging trenches, filling sandbags. We were dead tired. When it was dark, we found our way back to our own trenches, where there was a roll-call. Out of the eight hundred that went over, only a hundred answered. The rest were either wounded or killed. At the time, our parents used to send out food parcels, wrapped in cloth. So there were parcels for eight hundred men waiting for us, to be shared amongst a hundred.

Private Frank Lindlay

14th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment

As we were making for the gaps between the shell-holes, we were covered by their fire. They opened up with whizz-bangs, and one hit us. I was wounded by a piece of shell through my right thigh. I managed to drag myself down to a dressing station behind the lines. On the way down, I could see our reserve trenches were full of dead and wounded. The Germans had lifted their barrage as we'd gone over, and all our reserve troops were decimated at the back. Everything was quiet as I went past. When I got to the dressing station, they gave me a shot for tetanus, wrapped me up and bunged me in an ambulance that went to
Étaples
, where they operated. They yanked the piece of shell – and my trousers – out of my leg, and I was dispatched back to Blighty.

Private Arthur Pearson

15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment

The sergeant decided that as the attack was finished, we'd go back and try and get into our own line. We climbed out of a shell-hole and made a dash, and my rifle got caught on the wire. It stopped there. I didn't have time to get it free, and we got back in the line. I noticed one of our chaps, Jim, laying in the trench with a severed leg, and a block of timber across it which was acting as a tourniquet, stopping the bleeding. I ran down the trench, looking for
stretcher-bearers
, and I bumped into an officer with half-a-dozen men. He stopped me, and wanted to know where I was going. I said, 'I'm going for help! There's Jim, there, with his leg off!' 'Never mind him!' said the officer. 'Fall in with my men!' So I picked a rifle up, wiped it and fell in. But when I got my first chance, I lost him. Well, Jim was found and carried out, and sent to Blighty, and he made it through!

Private Ralph Miller

1/8th Battalion, Warwickshire Regiment

There were so many falling. I was hit by a shell blast. I didn't know a thing from that moment on until I was back in
Birmingham
. I don't know who picked me up and saved me. I was hit by shrapnel in my hand, my arm and I lost two fingers on my right hand. When I came round at the University Hospital in Birmingham, I was told that my parents had been to see me. I was in a nice comfortable bed – but it was the shock of my life: 'Where am I? What am I doing here?' I asked the military orderly. 'You're in Brum,' he said, and I shook his hand.

Private Stanley Bewshire

11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment

I came to Serre, and there was
Colonel Rickman
and
Lieutenant McAlpine
. They said, 'Have you just come over, my lad?' I said, 'Yes.' The colonel said, 'Was that you firing over there? Are they Germans?' I said, 'Yes sir, they were just coming down that communication trench, and I felt they were going to counterattack.' He said, 'You did very well. We've been watching you. Take his name and number, McAlpine!' The colonel then told me to move down the line. Later on, when I was in a Canadian hospital, a sergeant from the battalion came to see me. He said, 'It's come up on battalion orders – you've got the
Military Medal
.'

Private Reginald Glenn

12th Battalion, York and Lancaster Regiment

I fell back, but the British line was smashed up by artillery fire, and we fell back to the support line. Only twenty of us got back to the support line. And then, at noon, we received a message from divisional headquarters, telling us that we had to do it again.
Twenty of us
had to make another attack on the German lines. We were shocked, like sheep who didn't know what was going on. That order was countermanded – we couldn't have gone, there weren't enough of us. And we had no idea what was happening anywhere else. There was no communication.

That night we went out, and if we heard anybody crying or moaning, we helped them back into our lines. The stretcher-bearers were working, but they couldn't cope on their own. There was no firing from the Germans, and we did a lot of that, all night.

Private James Snaylham

11th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment

As I crawled into the communication trench, a sniper fired and it whizzed past my face. It was a miracle. Anyway I crawled on and on until I come to a field dressing station, where I was told, 'I don't know what to do with you! Look at all this lot wounded!' He said, 'I will take you on to the main road, and probably an ambulance will come along and pick you up.' Well, eventually an ambulance did come along and it was full, but they took me in and it took me to a big chateau. There was a tremendous drama there – it was full of wounded. So they carried me in and they operated on me – one man holding my arms and another holding my legs, while they pulled the shrapnel out.

Corporal A. Wood

16th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment

I got a field dressing on my wound, and then I made my way – as best as I could – back to the railhead, which was a miniature railway. I lay there for two or three days without anyone coming near me, because the train that was supposed to take us to the hospital had broken down. Eventually, it did come and we got down to the
Canadian General Hospital in Boulogne
. We all got nicely tucked up in bed, and then the
Zeppelins
came over and bombed the hospital out of existence. After that we were all shipped back to Blighty. Half the soldiers wouldn't have got back home if it hadn't been for the Zeppelins; they'd have been patched up, and sent back up the line.

Sergeant A. S. Durrant

18th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry

It took me over a week to reach England, and when we arrived at Bristol station we were laid out on the platform and the good Bristol folk came and gave us cigarettes, tobacco and sweets. I was conveyed to
Southmead Hospital in Bristol
and dumped on to a nice clean bed in exactly the same state as I'd been in France, all covered with mud and crammed full of lice. A nurse came to take off my clothes, and I was heartily sorry for her, having to drag those clothes off me and make me reasonably clean. For two or three days after, the odd louse kept finding its way into the bedclothes.

BEAUMONT HAMEL TO THIEPVAL

Further south, the 1st
Newfoundland Regiment
was the only Dominion regiment advancing on the first morning of the battle. Out of 810 Newfoundlanders who attacked the village of Beaumont Hamel, only sixtyeight men – and no officers – escaped serious injury. A hundred bombers of the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers advanced to a sunken road in noman's- land, but were forced to retreat. Men of the
36th (Ulster) Division
attacked and captured
Schwaben Redoubt
, and made further advances into German territory, but fell back under '
friendly' British artillery fire
.

Corporal George Ashurst

1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers

Before the attack, you couldn't move in the trenches, they were so packed with men. They were grumbling and grousing; some were trying to be brave, and joking. There were all sorts. It went quiet, and then it was time to go. When I stepped on top of our trench, there was a corporal lying there, hit by a whizz-bang, and all his shoulder was gone. Blown away. And he looked up at me, and he said, 'Go on! Get the bastards!' I said, 'OK,' and buggered off as fast as I could. There were bullets everywhere; there was gunsmoke; you could hear a bullet hitting someone, and you'd hear him groan and go down. I was running fast, zigzagging. All I was thinking, was, 'I've got to get forward!' Keeping my head down. I was expecting to feel a bullet any second.

I came to the sunken road, 150 yards from our trench, and I dived into it. You couldn't see the German trenches from it. There were others in there, including the colonel, and he said, 'Every fit man, over the top again! Come with me!' He went over the top, and out, and I followed him; whether a lot of others did, I don't know, but I ran on and I realised that there was nobody with me. I was by myself. I got a bit frightened and I dropped into a shell-hole. I lay down and I looked back towards our front line. I was looking at our wounded, and I saw one or two of them getting up and trying to get back, and then dropping. They were being shot
again
, as they tried to move.